The Power of Intrapersonal Tithing

During my twenties and thirties, I attended Saint Lukes Episcopal Church in downtown Atlanta. I was active in the church in a variety of ways including teaching second grade Sunday school, serving on the associate vestry, and making calls for the annual fund drive.

Year after year, my friend Kitty and I would schedule appointments with parishioners, meet in their homes, and ask them to tithe ten percent of their income. These calls were not easy for me. In fact, I would have preferred eating glass, but I knew it was important to make them.

Those calls forced me to look at my own patterns of giving. I believe tithing ten percent of your income is a good idea, but I still do not do it. To be honest, I am afraid that one day I will need the money. But I do not like focusing on scarcity, instead of abundance, and I do not like living in fear. So each year, my giving creeps closer to ten percent.

Tithing money is important as are other forms of tithing, such as tithing our time in the form of volunteer work and a new form of tithing I read about in The Power of Giving: Creating Abundance in Your Home, at Work, and in Your Community by Azim Jamal and Harvey McKinnon. It is called intrapersonal tithing.

I met Harvey McKinnon at a workshop I gave at The Giving Institutes summer conference in Napa Valley, California, this summer. Harvey formulated the idea of intrapersonal tithing. He says there are 8,760 hours in a year, and the average person sleeps eight hours a day or 2,920 hours. That leaves 5,840 waking hours. After subtracting other essential commitments such as:

Work: 40 hours x 50 weeks = 2,000 hours a year;

Buying, preparing, and eating food: 2 hours x 365 days = 730 hours;

Housework, washing clothes, etc.: about 200 hours; and
Commuting: about 300 hours;

We have 2,610 hours left, or approximately 2,000 hours. Ten percent of that would be 200 hours. That is a little less than four hours a week. Think how different your life would be if you committed four hours a week to yourself and your personal growth.
You could:

Read fiction and nonfiction that inspires, entertains, and/or educates you.

Spend time with your loved ones.

Journal.

Take a course at your local community college.

Do something creative such as paint, sculpt, cook, or write.

Meditate or pray.

Meet with a mentor, coach, spiritual guide, or therapist.

Spend time in nature.

Exercise, lift weights, or do yoga.

When you enhance your knowledge, learn new ideas, and gain new skills, you have much more to offer others, Harvey says. Great knowledge can lead to better jobs, higher income, and more personal satisfaction and your mental, psychological, spiritual, and emotional health improves, too.

Many of my clients complain that they have no time for themselves. They feel stretched and stressed. They worry that they are burning out, and they are. I counsel them to take time for themselves to recharge their batteries if they are going to be any good for their families and work.

Many initially say that designating ten percent of their free time to themselves is daunting. I do not know where I would find the time, one client remarked. Another said, Ten percent feels so self-indulgent.

If you share similar feelings, Harvey recommends escalator giving, increasing the time you devote to yourself by one percent a year until you reach ten percent. There are few of us who can not commit to that.

Could you commit to designating more you time?

Still not sure? Try intrapersonal tithing for a month. I believe you will find that you are a happier, more productive person for it.

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